Linked List: June 20, 2009

Saturday, 20 June 2009

This piece by NY Times columnist Roger Cohen, reporting from Tehran, is the most visceral, moving, and inspiring piece I’ve read regarding the current situation in Iran. It’s a testimony to good writing, to courage, and the simple value of being there:

Khamenei has taken a radical risk. He has factionalized himself, so losing the arbiter’s lofty garb, by aligning himself with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against both Mir Hussein Moussavi, the opposition leader, and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a founding father of the revolution.

He has taunted millions of Iranians by praising their unprecedented participation in an election many now view as a ballot-box putsch. He has ridiculed the notion that an official inquiry into the vote might yield a different result. He has tried pathos and he has tried pounding his lectern. In short, he has lost his aura.

I think (hope?) Khamenei made a critical error when he threatened Iran’s citizenry with violence. At that point he removed any remaining doubt whether the election was fraudulent. Like throwing water on a grease fire.

Low Light Macro Photo From 3GS ★

Here’s the same shot taken with my EDGE iPhone.

iPhone 3GS OpenGL Benchmarks ★

Daniel Pasco:

After several different tests, the overall trend was starkly apparent: the iPhone 3GS ran about twice as fast as the 2g Touch in every test.

The results are specific to our own application and are definitely not all-inclusive, but the figure is still significant and interesting. I haven’t updated any of the code to take advantage of the OpenGL ES 2.0 features, so this is simply comparing ES 1.1 performance on the two platforms.

(Keep in mind that the second-gen iPod Touch is faster than the original iPhone and iPhone 3G.)

iLounge’s iPhone 3GS Speed Comparison Videos ★

Side-by-side performance comparisons between a 3GS and 3G, as well as comparisons to the second-gen iPod Touch. The difference in launch time for games is particularly dramatic. Things that ran OK before now run fast on the 3GS; things that ran fast now run super fast.

John Hodgman’s Speech to the White House Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner ★

Very funny.

Commodore 64 Emulator Rejected From App Store ★

Looks like an awesome app — a working C64 emulator with a gorgeous UI.

But while I hope this gets worked out and allowed into the store (I’d buy it in a heartbeat), it should not be considered a bogus/outrageous/controversial rejection. The rejection notice cites sections of the SDK guidelines (forbidding code emulators) which the app clearly violates. This is the sort of app where it’d be nice if there were some sort of “premier developer” channel through which developers could get approval for concepts in advance of developing them.

Barron’s Rumor From April on Jobs Moving to Memphis ★

Several readers sent this Barron’s Tech Trader Daily link to me when it was new, but I decided against linking to it because it was just so sketchily sourced. This rumor from April had Jobs moving to Tennessee for medical treatment — but for “pancreatic cancer”, not a liver transplant.

I’ve ignored a slew of Jobs-related rumors over the past year because of the sourcing. But tonight’s bombshell story in the WSJ is completely unsourced. I can’t recall anything like this before: a top news source (and in this case, the preeminent U.S. business news source) reporting an enormous scoop about an important figure without even a hint, nothing, about where the information came from.

The timing makes me think it was a leak from Apple. But the complete and utter lack of sourcing makes me wonder if the leak came from someone legally obligated not to reveal Jobs’s private medical information. And if the Journal knows that Jobs had a liver transplant, why don’t they know which hospital performed it? From the Journal report:

Three hospitals in Tennessee — Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center in Memphis, Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville and Methodist University Hospital in Memphis — are designated as liver-transplant centers, according to UNOS. A spokeswoman for Le Bonheur said the hospital doesn’t perform liver transplants in adults. A Vanderbilt spokesman said it didn’t treat Mr. Jobs. A spokeswoman for Methodist University said Mr. Jobs isn’t listed as a patient there.

Reading between the lines, if he had a liver transplant in Tennessee, it must have been at one of these three hospitals. Two flatly deny it, but the third, Methodist University, simply told them he “isn’t listed as a patient” — present tense, not past tense. So it must have been there. But why can’t the Journal state that as fact as well?

This story is very weird. It’ll be interesting to see how, or if, other publications will pick up this story.

The Timing of Steve Jobs’s Purported Liver Transplant ★

I’m curious about the reported timing. The Journal story says “about two months ago”, but I heard from a bunch of sources last week at WWDC that Jobs had been seen on campus the week before — i.e. about two weeks ago. I mean, he was there walking around, giving people hell like usual. Regarding recuperating time, the Journal story has this sentence:

Recovery from a liver transplant is relatively fast, said William Chapman, a specialist at Washington University who has no direct knowledge of Mr. Jobs’s case.

But six weeks doesn’t sound “relatively” fast, to me. It sounds crazy fast.

I don’t know how authoritative it is, but here’s what health-cares.net says regarding liver transplant patients:

After discharge from the hospital, patients are seen every week (for approximately three weeks) in the outpatient clinic for an examination and monitoring of blood tests. During this time, medications are adjusted based on the levels found in your blood. After approximately one month, patients are usually seen only two to three times during the first year. Also beginning at one month, blood is checked every other week; eventually, it is checked only once a month. Most patients are encouraged to resume physical activity, including work, after three to six months, depending on their recovery. Patients may resume heavy activity, including workouts, at six months.

So I’m thinking that if Steve Jobs had a liver transplant, it was more than “about two months” ago.

WSJ: Steve Jobs Had Liver Transplant ‘About Two Months’ Ago ★

Yukari Iwatani and Joann S. Lublin, reporting for The Wall Street Journal:

Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave from Apple Inc. since January to treat an undisclosed medical condition, received a liver transplant in Tennessee about two months ago. The chief executive has been recovering well and is expected to return to work on schedule later this month, though he may work part-time initially.

This must be a deliberate, timed leak from Apple. The timing is simply perfect from Apple’s perspective — midnight on the Friday of what appears to be the most successful new product launch in company history.

But two things strike me about this story. First, the WSJ offers no source for this information — not even an “according to sources close to the matter”. But yet they state it flatly as certain fact. That’s highly unusual. And whoever their source, they didn’t give the WSJ any publishable information regarding why Jobs needed a new liver — that part of the article is pure speculation. My guess is that the source is rock solid but gave the information only on the condition of complete unsourced anonymity. Curious no matter what, though.

Second, why Tennessee? Tennessee is a lovely state but, well, it doesn’t sound like Steve Jobs country. You don’t need to leave the Bay area to get world-class medical treatment. Here’s the answer:

The specifics of Mr. Jobs’s surgery couldn’t be established, but according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the transplant network in the U.S., there are no residency requirements for transplants. Having the procedure done in Tennessee makes sense because its list of patients waiting for transplants is shorter than in many other states. According to data provided by UNOS, in 2006, the median number of days from joining the liver waiting list to transplant was 306 nationally. In Tennessee, it was 48 days.